


the greatest trick god ever played

by Capriccioso



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-08-01 12:08:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16284344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capriccioso/pseuds/Capriccioso
Summary: In a universe where a soulmate mark binds Sam and the most capricious archangel, some things go a little bit differently.Now with bonus Destiel chapter.





	1. Chapter 1

When Gabriel first came to earth the vessel he built for himself was a combination of the things he thought prettiest about the humans he’d watched: tall and muscular and dark-haired and androgynous.

He had a lot of fun in that body - the people on earth were much slower to catch onto his pranks than his siblings in Heaven had been. They were more interesting too; always changing, always chasing something. 

And then one day - long ago, he’d been dating Kali back then - he woke up with something he definitely didn’t put on his hand-crafted vessel: loopy, wide-spaced Latin letters, swirling in on themselves. On his upper right thigh, upside down as if they’re meant to be read by someone kneeling at his feet. “So, how long’ve you been working here?”, it says. 

It amuses him, so it stays, right up until Kali discovers it - “What are you, really? Gods don’t have soulmate marks, Loki!” He tries to talk himself out of it, but she leaves, in a huff, and he doesn't return like all of this meant nothing to her.

He hates it then, this stupid inexplicable thing that cost him Kali, because it’s not like angels have soulmate marks; he’d never even considered that that’s what it could be. Gabriel tries to remove it, to hide it, but it always comes back; when he cuts off the entire leg, it just appears on the other one.

So he hops vessels- it’s hard work to create a whole human body from scratch, it takes a lot of effort and time but he must’ve gotten something wrong with his first one, there’s no other explanation for the words persistently appearing, stark and black, through any kind of glamour he puts on them.

It takes a few months, a few blissful months where Gabriel is certain he’s outrun them, for the words to appear on the thigh of the pretty girl he made for himself to wear.

On the next vessel it’s barely a day.

The final one, a golden-haired man that he’d planned to make taller before he’d lost patience, has the words emblazoned on his flesh even before Gabriel is finished putting him together.

Whoever it is that bears the other half of this soulmate mark is too stubborn for him to outrun. Now, centuries after Kali, he can see the humour in it; he’s read some of the gushing fiction humans write about soulmate marks and he’s kind of curious. 

The words still don’t make any sense though - “How long’ve you been working here?” - Gabriel doesn’t even have a job.

***  
When Sam Winchester was ten years old, he learned about soulmate marks. He didn’t have one yet, but that didn’t stop him from pestering his older brother.

It was another four years before a drunk Dean showed him the burned strip of flesh right above his ribs, no words legible, like mere human flesh couldn’t contain them. Dean is convinced that means he has no soulmate, but Sam quietly files away the information for research purposes; it’d just upset his brother if he told him that he thought his soulmate may be one of the things they hunt.

Sam was eighteen - “You can’t force me to give up my entire life for your revenge quest!” - he’d just screamed at his father, and he knows Dean is right behind him and he just keeps running because he isn’t sure he wants to know what his brother will say to him.

The pain is a surprise; it feels like his skin is on fire - he goes down to his knees, scrabbles ineffectually at the collar of his shirt. He’s vaguely aware Dean’s caught up with him, patting his back, but it takes him a few minutes still until he can breathe without wheezing.

When he looks up to meet his brother’s eyes, Dean bursts out into a fit of laughter even Sam’s bitch face #53 can’t quell. Finally, he points to Sam’s neck and reads out the looping font, scrawled yet still elegant, tattooed on his collar bone, reaching up further than any shirt collar can hide, “I’ve been mopping this floor for six years.”

Sam is grateful for the soulmate mark - it gave him an opening to stay in contact with Dean, to talk to his brother instead of storming off into the night all alone. He meets Jessica at Stanford and she’s not his soulmate and he’s not hers, but she asks him on a date anyway and Sam thinks that if he were just a little bit lonelier he’d have said yes.

Even if they never dated, her death was on him and the guilt ate him alive as he got into Dean’s car and pretended that revenge could fix his breaking heart.

***  
On one of the hunts - they’re pretending to be electricians, business as always - they meet a golden-haired janitor; he has an expressive face and a clever mouth and he reminds Sam that he still hasn’t told Dean that he’s bisexual.

It’s almost absent-mindedly that he asks - “So how long’ve you been working here?” - because it’s a question he asks all the time on hunts. His gaze is already wandering off toward the rest of the room - right up until the janitor opens his mouth and says

“I’ve been mopping this floor for six years,” thereby crisply informing Dean of his brother’s bisexuality.

“I’m Sam. Winchester,” he adds, ignoring his brother’s elbow to the ribs, because he doesn’t want to start this with lies, but he’s already lied and how can he be any good as a soulmate when he’s still hunting and -

All his thoughts come to an abrupt, screeching halt, once the man fixes golden eyes on him, face carefully blank. 

Sam tugs at the collar of his shirt, revealing the always half-visible words, they’re clearly legible now and besides, the man would probably recognize his unique hand writing from a room away.

The face stays blank. “You know, I just realized I have an important hysterectomy appointment,” he says, flatly, and then he’s walking away and Sam stares after him and he doesn’t know what else to say or what to think.

Sam is very careful not to think any thoughts about his soulmates’ rejection of him. Until this case is over, he promises himself, just until it’s over and then you can break down, then you can deal with your feelings, but then they’ve found the Trickster and he’s dead and Dean gives him an awkward pat on the shoulder before leaving him alone to stand in that auditorium and stare blankly.

It’s because he’s been staring at the still-existing gaudy bed on the stage for an hour that he realizes. “I’m glad you’re still alive,” he says before he can think about it too much. He doesn’t even know if his soulmate, the Trickster, can hear him, but he says the words anyway.

“I’m sorry I’m not what you wanted. But it’s fine, I’ll be fine. I just - I just wanted to let you know that - the alien thing was pretty funny. Just ... dead men learn no lessons, y’know?” He shuffles awkwardly; he’s babbling. “Anyway. Uhm. Best of - best of luck out there, soulmate.”

***  
Gabriel assumes this is what his father thinks passes as a joke. Here’s your soulmate, my dearest son, your brother licked this one already I hope that’s fine. He makes a face. All this waiting and it’s Lucifer’s vessel in the end; does his father think he’ll fight his favourite brother for some mortal?

“I’m glad you’re still alive,” the mortal in question says, quietly to an empty room, and Gabriel shuffles his wings nervously. He’s invisible, he knows he is, more than that, he doesn’t even exist on the same plane as Sam Winchester, but he still feels uncomfortably like the Hunter is looking right at him.

“Best of luck out there,” says the overgrown puppy that is meant to destroy the world and Gabriel thinks that his Dad played a pretty good prank here after all.

He tries to stay away, he really does, but it’s just so easy to slide into the backseat of the Impala, invisible, unseen, and watch Sam Winchester like he’s Gabriel’s favourite TV show. The mortal puppy prays every night and he includes a few words for his soulmate the murderous monster of the week that didn’t even want to speak to him and Gabriel loves and hates that he hears them all.

Mystery Spot is a lesson for Gabriel as much as it is for Sam; what will it take for him to stop shadowing Lucifer’s vessel? How much will he have to hurt Sam for him to stop praying for him? When Dean dies in that parking lot what is left is the shell of Sam Winchester, a revenge-minded robot in the vague shape of Gabriel’s soulmate, and Gabriel tries to make himself feel contempt for him for a long, long time before he gives up and snaps it all back into place underneath Sam’s angry, pleading gaze.

TVLand he doesn’t even want to talk about; he really phoned that one in. Especially considering that he’s been caught out and he refuses to help them and he refuses to look at Sam and it’s fine, it’s great, the world will need to end first but he’ll still outrun his father’s plan and that’s enough for Gabriel.

Afterwards, Sam starts praying again, directly to Gabriel this time. Gabriel knows for a fact that his soulmate hasn’t prayed to anyone since the demon blood, has felt himself too tainted, and these aren’t real prayers, not really, they’re just little jokes and updates and, and - “It’s okay, you know? I don’t think I could kill Dean either.” - and whatever those are.

***  
Gabriel is done running. 

His father won again, in the end, because inexplicably, infuriatingly, he is in love with Sam Winchester, Lucifer’s vessel, and he’ll pay for it in Elysian Fields.

He has no illusions of victory, Lucifer had always been stronger than him, even more cunning, the Morningstar, the brightest of them all. “Luci, I’m home~,” Gabriel doesn’t remember the entire fight - traumatic memories, Sam says, but that’s bullshit because he’s an eternal being and he’s seen it all - but somehow, after it’s over, he’s still alive.

Bleeding out on the floor, mostly human, but alive, and Sam Winchester drops Gabriel's archangel blade and rushes to his side and Sam Winchester has killed the Devil and Sam Winchester is saying his name like a litany of prayers.

***  
He doesn’t try to stay away this time and it’s even easier to slide into the backseat of the Impala, visible, seen, and watch Sam Winchester grin at him in the rear-view mirror in a way that promises kisses the next time they stop.

(Gabriel snaps himself onto Sam’s lap and kisses him right there, ignoring Dean’s protests.)


	2. Bonus

Sam is sitting on his bed in a motel room somewhere in West Virginia, freshly showered, trying to read a lore book but mostly just succeeding at making a bitch face at it. Whatever it was they were hunting, it was definitely not a rakshasa like this book had led him to believe, as the creature wearing the face of a mild-mannered local accountant had been utterly unimpressed with the brass daggers they'd brought.

On the bed next to him, his back to Sam, is Dean, not yet showered and cursing colourfully. He's just stripped off all the layers of dirty, blood-streaked shirts he's wearing when Cas appears as always - with a flutter and much too close to Dean for comfort.

"Dean," the angel says, and Sam doesn't even bother being annoyed; angels treating him like chopped liver when Dean's in the room is an old hat by now. "I require your assistance."

"Not right now, Cas," Dean mutters under his breath; from where Sam is sitting he can see the tension in his brother's back.

The angel reaches out to press two fingers to Dean's forehead and the Hunter gives a full-body shudder before the mojo even hits; his wounds knit up like they'd never even been there. Experiencing angel healing first-hand is trippy, but looking at it as a bystander is, if possible, even trippier.

"Thanks," Dean says in that particular tone that Sam knows is accompanied by Dean averting his gaze to avoid chick flick moments. Cas has no reply, and Sam looks up from his lore book to study the puzzled expression on the angels face.

Dean is right in front of Cas so he has an easier time discerning what he's looking at. "Don't worry about that one, that's supposed to be there." An angelic head tilt from Cas. "'s my soulmate mark," Dean admits, quietly.

At this, Cas' eyes go wide, flickering through a series of emotions from disbelief, puzzlement, hope and finally settling on something unreadable. Sam hates to admit it, but now he's watching them intently like his own private soap opera.

Dean, too, must've caught the hope because he asks, "Do you - do angels have any soulmate marks? Aside from, y'know, those from the vessels."

Cas is quiet for a moment. "This vessel still bears the mark Jimmy carried for Amelia," he says, diplomatically. "But ... I have noticed an ... additional mark."

"Yeah?" (Sam can hear the breathlessness from across the room but he can't fault his brother because he, too, is holding his breath now; where's the popcorn when you need it?)

Cas shrugs out of his trench coat, and then the suit jacket and the dress shirt. There's something there, written on the same shoulder Dean carries the burned handprint; Sam can't read it from his spot on the other bed even though he cranes his neck, but he needn't have bothered because Dean reads it out loud, questioningly, "Who are you?"

The angel seems nervous in a way Sam's never seen him before, full of restless energy. He shrugs the dress shirt back on. "They are the first words you spoke to me," he explains.

"Yeah, well, you forget I was there too and this," he gestures to the burned patch of skin, "Is definitely not 'I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition'," Dean says gruffly, and from the tone Sam can tell that it's a quote. Figures that Castiel, Angel of the Lord, would go for pompous.

Cas licks his lips. "They are - that is, I spoke, I spoke to you in Hell, in my true form. Your skin could not have carried the meaning of my words. I apologize."

Sam awaits his brothers response with baited breath so it takes him a moment to realize that the conversation is over and now it's meaningful eye sex time. Cas is leaning forward and oh god, they're gonna kiss and - Sam slams his lore book closed much harder than necessary and Dean jumps a foot backwards, almost tumbling off the bed in his haste to turn and stare at Sam.

Yup, just as he'd suspected, they'd both forgotten he was there. Sam gives them bitchface #23 and wordlessly leaves the motel room before Dean can start stuttering justifications for himself. He'll have time to tease Dean about this later; he's kinda worried if he says the wrong thing right now Dean'll break the whole thing off.

It's late and it's cold and the monster they were hunting is still around here somewhere, so Sam doesn't go far. He gets a drink from the soda machine and leans against the hood of the Impala in it's parking spot outside their room. The stars are beautiful tonight, and for the first time since Mystery Spot, Sam is compelled to send a little prayer for his soulmate toward the skies. The Trickster may have been cruel and a wicked pain in the ass, but at least he'd never forgotten that Sam was in the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now this exists.
> 
> It just made sense to me to write the Destiel from Sam's point of view as well since this is still technically his story.


End file.
